Eight million sales in the space of 6 days, we can say that Palworld is a real tidal wave and undoubtedly the beginnings of a phenomenon. But who are Palworld’s main buyers? According to a study of Steam profiles carried out by Game Discover, China and the United States represent the majority of the game’s sales, with 36.4% and 21.4% market share respectively. This is far ahead of Germany with its 6%, France and its 3.3% and Canada and its 3%. Japan is just behind with 2.5% of buyers. For the moment, Palworld is available on PC and Xbox, via Xbox Game Pass, but the bulk of sales are mainly on Steam. The platform has also announced that Palworld is now one of the most played games on Steam with a peak of more than 2 million players connected simultaneously. Aside from PUBG and its historic peak of 3.2 million players, no one has done better on Steam so far.
WAR IS DECLARED ?
But will Palworld succeed in continuing its momentum? Nothing is less certain, since The Pokémon Company has just officially announced that it will investigate the production of the title developed by PocketPair and the numerous accusations of plagiarism to which it is the subject on social networks. “We have received numerous inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024. We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in this game. We have the intends to investigate and take appropriate action to remedy any acts infringing on intellectual property rights relating to Pokémon.”
This is what we can read on the official Japanese website of The Pokémon Company, which is also perhaps a way of responding to Pokémon fans, upset that Palworld can tread on the grounds of their favorite games. If the matter now takes another turn, you should know that a former former lawyer who previously worked for The Pokémon Company, named Don McGowan, had already spoken out to comment on what was happening around Palworld. According to him, he even wonders how such a project can exist, he who considers Palworld to be a usual scam, like he saw a thousand times a year when he was legal director for Pokémon. Don McGowan goes even further by saying that he is surprised that such a game has gone this far, that the copying is so obvious, especially on the “Shiny” creatures that the game should already be banned for sale.
Some Internet users have even found evidence according to which Palworld has used 3D assets from Pokémon and according to certain developers who were interviewed on this subject, it is impossible to accidentally reproduce the proportions of several 3D models of the same game, without stealing the models in question. For them, Pocketpair developers may have taken 3D models of Pokémon and drawn on top of them. Which would explain the similarities. Faced with the numerous accusations hovering over his studio, the head of the Pocketpair studio was quick to speak out and even declared that they make their games very seriously, without any intention of stealing intellectual property. from other companies. Moreover, other lawyers are not as categorical as Don McGowan, who specifies that it will be difficult for The Pokémon Company to win this accusation of plagiarism on the sole ground of imitation. Because this is the difference between a lawsuit for copyright infringement, which it would be very difficult to prove in court, and the public debate which concerns the ethics around Palworld and the resemblance in the design of its monsters by compared to Pokémon. To this, other Internet users wanted to point out that Pokémon monsters are already inspired by those of Dragon Quest, and there has never been any drama… We could also talk about Digimon, but that’s is yet another subject.
PLAGIARISM, TRIBUTE OR INSPIRATION?
Despite this, since the launch on January 19, 2024, there has not been a single day where Palworld has not reported heated debates on social networks, also because some are convinced that the game has appealed to Generative AI. But anyway, let’s ask ourselves this question. Why is Palworld such a dazzling success? For some, it’s the Pokémon game that everyone has been waiting for, with the added bonus of a visual rendering that finally does justice to the platforms on which it was released. It must be said that the latest episodes of the Pokémon license, especially since it opted for open world games, are not technological showcases, far from it. They are even quite hideous, even shameful, when we know that each episode of Pokémon ultimately generates between 20 and 30 million sales at the end of its career. But for Nintendo and The Pokémon Company, it’s a subject that doesn’t seem to interest them, but by dint of showing it, players are also starting to get tired of it.
The other element that allowed Palworld to be so successful was the name “Pokémon with guns”. If in fact, the comparison is viable, ultimately, it is not quite that. In reality, Palworld is more like the game of ARK: Survival Evolved with a Pokémon skin, where the main interest is to capture and tame creatures so that they can help the player improve their base. In Palworld, the player evolves in a world full of what we call Pals, these are creatures that can be captured with a small ball and thus reduced to slavery. We can in fact ask them to work in the factory to produce resources and manufacture the famous weapons that we need to survive in this ultimately hostile world. You can play with up to 31 people on the same server and that too is part of the weighty arguments that contribute to the success of Palworld.
In the meantime, Palworld remains the biggest story in the video game industry at the start of 2024, and this ad only heightens its interest, adding a million sales per day since its release less than a year ago. week. The giants of the sector are reveling in it, since the game has already landed on Xbox via its Game Pass from launch day, while Sony is already negotiating for a port to PS5. In short, one thing is certain, we haven’t heard the last of Palworld.
